The Civil and Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV) has confirmed the acquittal of the ex-president of the Diputación de Valencia Jorge Rodríguez and the other 13 accused in the case of high-level contracts in the public company Divalterra.
The magistrates have dismissed the appeal presented by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office against the ruling of the Provincial Court last May, which exonerated the defendants of the crimes of prevarication, embezzlement and falsification of documents in the senior management contracts signed by Divalterra (formerly Imelsa) between 2015 and 2018.
In the appeal ruling, which consists of 168 pages and can be appealed in cassation before the Supreme Court, the TSJCV points out that the statement of proven facts, “as it appears drafted in the contested ruling, does not allow the conviction to be substantiated.” aims to".
Among the 14 acquitted are, in addition to the former president of the Valencia Provincial Council Jorge Rodríguez, who resigned from the presidency of the provincial corporation, two former managers and the former vice manager of Divalterra and three former advisors of the former. The remaining seven defendants are the senior managers hired by said company.
The accusations maintained that the top officials of Divalterra, a company dependent on the Provincial Council, designed an artificial system of management areas in this company solely to favor members, associates or sympathizers of the political parties that then ran the provincial corporation, PSPV-PSOE. (party to which Jorge Rodríguez belonged) and Compromís.
However, the Valencia Court concluded that it had not been proven that the company dependent on the Provincial Council was economically harmed by this new management model and nor did it find the commission of any of the crimes attributed to those responsible.
The Civil and Criminal Chamber of the TSJCV has now ratified the Court's acquittal ruling, understanding that it is sufficiently motivated by virtue of the evidence presented during the oral trial.
“This court of appeal may or may not share what was said by the court of first instance, but it is not possible to affirm that its assessments are contrary to common sense, logic or experience, nor therefore that they are absurd, arbitrary, inconsistent or incoherent,” point out the magistrates of the Valencian High Court.
“The less there are reasonable doubts in this regard, and this assessment of the trial court is respected by this court of appeal, given that the reasons taken into consideration by it are reasonable and in accordance with common sense, vulgar logic and ordinary experience” , he adds.
